In the past weeks some really crazy things are happening. Think you’re way back in the time of 2003, could you have ever imagined that Microsoft offers you to run Linux on Windows 10? Well this is exactly what is happening in the past months.

With one of the Windows 10 releases Microsoft added the Windows Subsystem for Linux, which basically allowed you to run a Ubuntu version on your Windows 10 devices. In the past few days and weeks Microsoft now announced that you can now download and install SUSE Enterprise Server, openSUSE Leap and Ubuntu (my guess there will be more to come) from the Windows Store. All you need today is the latest Windows Insider Build 16237 (it also works with a couple of older insider builds), and you will be able to install these versions. For the mainstream, this will be available in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update arriving in the Fall of 2017. The Windows Subsystem for Linux will also be part in the next Windows Server RS3 release.

One great thing, Scott describes in his blog, if you want to configure the different Windows Subsystems for Linux and for example configure the default one, you can use the command line with the wslconfig utility.

Last week Microsoft announced Windows 10 Insider Preview build 16215 which added a lot of new features to Windows 10. With Windows 8 Microsoft brought Hyper-V to the Windows Client Operating System, and with the Windows 10 Insider Program we can also see some Hyper-V preview features coming to live. Previously we could see feature like Nested Virtualization and more in the Windows client builds before we seen them in the server releases. With Windows 10 Insider Preview build 16215, Hyper-V gets virtual battery support, which means you can now see your machine’s battery state in your VMs. This is especially handy if you run Virtual Machines on your notebook. My guess would be, that this could also be used on server for battery support and automatic shutdown.

To enable the feature inside the Virtual Machine you have to create a Prerelease Virtual Machine using PowerShell.

You can use the following PowerShell command to create a Prerelease Virtual Machine. Please remind yourself that prerelease virtual machines are not supported in production and may fail across updates.

You can now see that the Virtual Machine now has version number 254.0, which adds some hidden new features like virtual battery support.

My guess is that this could be available automatically per default in all virtual machines in the final version of the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update.

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My name is Thomas Maurer. I am a Senior Cloud Advocate at Microsoft. I am part of the Azure engineering team and engage with the community and customers around the world. I am located in Switzerland. I am focusing on Microsoft technologies, especially cloud and datacenter solutions based on Microsoft Azure, Azure Stack and Windows Server. Opinions are my own.